“I’m not the official door guy or anything, I’m just the DJ’s boyfriend.”

Inside, among the rickety stacks of speakers, wobbly ceiling fans, and strings of Christmas lights, a small crowd packs into the dark, remote Midway Café like distant cousins at Grandma’s third wedding. Australian indie-rock godfathers the Cannanes have popped in, and they toss off playful jabs at old friends R.E.M., to the gaggle of jeans-and-shirt-tucking fans in the house rubbing shoulders with the usual Musk crowd of unclassifiables (dreads, Brazil soccer jerseys, and short shorts — check) on the dance night’s third birthday a week ago Wednesday. The Cannanes rhyme “Australia” with “failure” a few times in a song, with great success. A neglected FotoFind console looks a little lonely.

There are booty-dancing cuts from the ’80s, white girls hitting body-lock poses, and a sign slung on the taps that reads “$2.50 Cans of Mystery Beer.” Musk founder and de facto Plunge into Death honcho Dave Geissler (who used to blast Captain Beefheart while on duty at Hi-Fi Records) presides over turntables and humbly shrugs off congratulatory hugs from well-wishers. (“Ouch . . . my back . . . totally sore,” he winces, fresh off a solo bike tour of Europe.)

A swerving conversation at one end of the bar about the existence of hippie communes in Ohio ends inconclusively as Plunge into Death’s Jesse Hubbell emerges from the basement in a pink blouse and skin-tight, stone-washed Jordaches and parts the crowd like a dinky Red Sea. The CD-R backing tracks start, and Plunge’s cheeky Miami sex-bass operatics take over while Geissler’s disco Steven Seagal moves stir up a campy and vaguely creepy environment in which to get winks from strangers (first-hand observation). The set is done in 20 minutes, and the room flips into basement-dance-party mode.

Even though the Cannanes have taken off in their mini-van, a faithful few remain spinning around the room to Devo’s “Gates of Steel,” and locals are still stumbling in through the door. It’s 1:15, and someone remembers the anniversary cake hidden under the bar.

Jeepers Creepers, where'd you get them Biebers? The Internet overflowed into the Midway Café last Saturday night — lesbianswholooklikejustinbieber.tumblr.com had apparently sprung a leak, and the Jamaica Plain bar was filled with Justin Bieber clones.

Down in the folk trenches with the Old Edison In a messy Allston kitchen, in unison, a mob of about 20 or 30 persons start screaming at the Old Edison. And as is their custom, the Old Edison shout right back. Welcome to a typical Old Edison performance, but please watch your step.

The young punk blood of Denmark's Iceage The big conundrum at the center of the Iceage phenomenon is one of intentionality: could vocalist Elias Rønnenfelt and Co. really have known what they were doing when they crafted New Brigade's thorny morass of no-wave HC effects-laden kicks?

Hard target Critic Langdon Winner once wrote that anyone who attempts to listen to Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica has two obstacles to overcome: the music and the lyrics. Scott Walker, "Jesse" (RealPlayer)

Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010 The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.

Technical difficulties Last week, Tristan da Cunha and I brainstormed some strategies by which they might finally hit the big time. Like, getting a charismatic frontman.

INTERVIEW: TALKING WITH MISSION OF BURMA'S ROGER MILLER | January 18, 2012 This weekend (January 20-21) brings a two-night stand at Brighton Music Hall for post-punk godfathers Mission of Burma, who have somehow morphed into a band that's equal parts internationally renowned throwbacks and prolific local underdogs.

TRYING TO FIND NOW | January 04, 2012 William Gibson — the writer who famously coined the term "cyberpunk" and whose classic tech-punk novels like Neuromancer and The Difference Engine helped spawn a couple generations' worth of bleak, busted fantasies — is now on tour promoting his first collection of nonfiction.

DENGUE FEVER ADD ECCENTRICITY TO PSYCH POP | June 01, 2011 For all the kitsch and B-movie flair of Dengue Fever, there are still a few aspects of their obsession with Cambodian pop that they haven't put on record.